Former commissioner has a big debt to pay

From the NY Times:

A former senior Bloomberg administration official has been fined $22,000 by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, primarily for using a city computer account to send e-mails related to her paid service as a board member of a real estate company.

Martha E. Stark, a former Department of Finance commissioner who resigned in 2009, acknowledged that she sent roughly 300 e-mails from her city account, over a four-year period, related to the Tarragon Corporation. Ms. Stark also acknowledged that she asked a former first deputy commissioner, as well as an executive assistant, to work on administrative tasks related to Tarragon.

Tarragon, which does not do business with the city, had paid Ms. Stark more than $134,000 in 2006 and 2007, while she was serving as finance commissioner. She had received permission from the Conflicts Board to serve on the Tarragon board, but with the requirement that she not use city resources for Tarragon work.

According to the conflicts board (see report below), Ms. Stark also asked, using her city e-mail, the vice president and general counsel of a corporation that owns luxury rental apartment buildings to help her former domestic partner look for an apartment. And, again using her city account, with her default signature as city finance commissioner, she asked a senior official at a real estate trade association to help her recently laid-off stepsister find a job.